Progressive mesh compression (or progressive compression) is the encoding of mesh geometry in stages with each stage generating information related to mesh connectivity, positions, and other attributes. Each successive stage results in a coarser level of detail (LOD) of the model, and the encoding of the next LOD takes advantage of the information already contained in the previous LOD. This is relevant for transmitting high resolution models via the Internet as the user on the receiving end (e.g., a client, a client device, or an application) does not have to wait until the entire model is received from the server. The client can quickly display lower resolution LODs of the model before the information associated with higher resolution LODs is received at the client device.